This week I'm going to continue the conversation with some additional features RAD has, that will help you develop software in a team environment more affectively. Here I will talk about the RAD database tools, developing portlets and the code review tool.

It is important to know that RAD includes database tools to assist developers in creating and maintaining applications that access and use relational databases. Support is provided for the most commonly used database products. The tools allow developers to access previously defined databases or to create database definitions. Wizards and frameworks are provided for XML-based data access, JavaBeans-based data access, and for using SQLJ to access the data. The tools provided in Rational Application Developer are intended to give a developer everything needed to build applications using relational databases, they are not meant as database administrator (DBA) or data architect tools.

RAD also provides tools for developing portlets. You can construct your portlet much as you would a Web page, by using a visual editor and dragging and dropping components from a palette. There is a Quick Edit view for inserting scripts into your page. There is a Data view that lets you bind data to the UI components. Additionally, there are portlet-specific components, such as Click-2-Action, which creates a data flow between two portlets, and People Awareness, which provides information on users logged into the portal. The tools allow you to create many types of portlets, and to use either the IBM portlet API or the JSR 168 portlet API. Portlets can be tested and debugged within the IDE (integrated development environment) using the included WebSphere Portal Test Environment.

Within RAD, the Code Review tool (used for Code Quality Assurance), is a rule-based static analysis tool, for automatic validation of Java code. It is used for correctness and compliance with coding standards and best practices.

It covers: J2SE and J2EE Best Practices Globalization Deep analysis of J2EE code - validation of data flow across compilation units of a J2EE application Looks across project without running code – statically Rules can be extended through rule templates Quick Code Review – 34 rules QuickFix (shown as lightbulb) Complete Code Review – 200+ rules (all rules) - When you change to the property of rules, change happens for all Reviews - Rules are part of tool, not the project

This demo shows a typical transfer scenario using the Team Debug feature. It provides an overview of the setup process, the debug artifacts included in a transfer, and how to search and retrieve debug sessions.